Of all the metaverse platforms active on the Internet today, Second Life by far offers the best overall revenue share to user creators on the platform. As a whole, the creator community makes about as much revenue from Second Life as the company itself, and 1,600 user creators earn over $10,000 a year — a higher number than ROBLOX, even though ROBLOX has vastly more users.
Speaking of which, ROBLOX takes an eye-punching 70% cut of revenue from its creators, while recent entry Core boasted that its cut is only… 50%. By contrast, an SL creator could sell goods and services in the virtual world, and only pay the 5% fee for cashing out Linden Dollars into US dollars.
But the story of Second Life's economy is more complicated than that.
To get a clearer picture, I recently surveyed SL content creators on two questions: How much of their revenue is absorbed by Linden Lab through additional costs, for listing products on the web-based Marketplace, for renting virtual storefront land from Linden Lab, and so on — and how that translated into real dollars.
Here's the results:
In a survey of 88 creators, the plurality stated that Linden Lab's average revenue take as being 30%. However, another 30% pegged Linden Lab's cut to be 40% or higher. Still, a strong majority pay Linden Lab 30% or less.
The story gets even more complicated when you ask creators to translate that revenue cut into real dollars paid to Linden Lab:
With 90 creators responding, the plurality (37%) stated that they pay Linden Lab over $200 a month. What's more, a solid 55% of creators pay Linden Lab over $100/month on average.
This shouldn't be a surprise, given that SL private island tier runs over $200/month, and many creators opt to have one or more of those, so they can have full control over their customers' experience. But then again, that's a striking contrast to what creators on, say, ROBLOX and Core, pay for hosting costs. (Generally under $20/month, I believe.)
If this survey scales to the broader SL economy, it helps explain why it feels to be in statis, with the biggest SL brands holding the lion's share of revenue, and very few new brands able to get a decent market share. (I can't recall hearing of a new SL brand to gain substantial traction in years.) With the cost of market entrance so high, it's difficult for newcomers to break in.
Recommendation:
- Linden Lab should consider more ways to help out new creators, and creators below a certain revenue rate — similar to how Epic and Steam charge a lower commission to indie game developers, compared to the big studios/publishers.
- SL creators should strongly consider expanding their brand beyond Second Life, so they have new revenue streams — and some extra leverage with Linden Lab.
Your thoughts, readers?
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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